1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,360 Welcome to Surfing Political Waves, a short series podcast hosted by the Pepperdine School 2 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:07,360 of Public Policy. 3 00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:09,300 This is Dan Schnurr. 4 00:00:09,300 --> 00:00:10,300 And I'm Joel Fox. 5 00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:15,500 And we're bringing you California election insight and analysis as the country ramps 6 00:00:15,500 --> 00:00:20,700 up to one of the most historic presidential races in memory, as well as other fascinating 7 00:00:20,700 --> 00:00:27,520 campaigns up and down the ballot. 8 00:00:27,520 --> 00:00:32,760 Welcome to Surfing Political Waves at Pepperdine University. 9 00:00:32,760 --> 00:00:33,760 I'm Joel Fox. 10 00:00:33,760 --> 00:00:41,680 And my special guest today is Mike Madrid, nationally recognized expert on Latino voting 11 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:43,080 trends. 12 00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:49,640 He's a partner in a public affairs firm, Grassroots Lab, and former political director for the 13 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:52,340 California Republican Party. 14 00:00:52,340 --> 00:00:59,240 And most importantly, he is the author of a recently published book called The Latino 15 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:02,120 Century. 16 00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:08,820 And he's being quoted all over the country and I might add all over the world on Latinos 17 00:01:08,820 --> 00:01:11,000 effect on this coming election. 18 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:17,720 The subtitle of his book, The Latino Century, is How America's Largest Minority is Transforming 19 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:19,060 Democracy. 20 00:01:19,060 --> 00:01:22,100 So let's start there, Mike. 21 00:01:22,100 --> 00:01:31,080 Is this large Latino population going to decide this presidential election? 22 00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:33,240 Great to be with you, Joel, as always. 23 00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:37,760 I've known you for a long time and appreciate the conversations that we have. 24 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:40,700 You know, I've been asked that question for the better part of 30 years, been involved 25 00:01:40,700 --> 00:01:43,680 in presidential campaigns for many decades now. 26 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:45,600 And my answer has always been no. 27 00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:47,400 2024 is different. 28 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:51,460 2024, I'm saying yes, I think it will be the determinative vote. 29 00:01:51,460 --> 00:01:57,040 Not only because it's such a close election, but because Latinos will be the margin of 30 00:01:57,040 --> 00:02:04,000 victory in every single battleground state will be surpassed in many cases considerably 31 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:09,680 by Latino voters in every single state, whether we're talking about North Carolina or Wisconsin, 32 00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:13,620 which are kind of newer states that we wouldn't imagine, or Arizona and Nevada, which have 33 00:02:13,620 --> 00:02:16,040 much larger Latino populations. 34 00:02:16,040 --> 00:02:19,640 The way this vote breaks, I think, is going to be determinative this year. 35 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:23,080 And again, I haven't I've never said that throughout the course of my career. 36 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:28,240 Well, how are the campaigns trying to reach the Latino voters? 37 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:32,840 And how successful have they been in doing that? 38 00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:33,840 That's a good question also. 39 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:36,040 And it's not just that they're trying to reach Latino voters. 40 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:40,280 It's they're they're really reaching to different segments of the Latino vote. 41 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:45,160 And I think it's really I think most illustrative or better best illustrated by the fact that 42 00:02:45,160 --> 00:02:50,840 they're both have named the very outreach operations in both their campaigns differently 43 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:51,960 with Kamala Harris. 44 00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:57,360 It's Latinos going Biden, which is a Spanish language, you know, Latinos for Biden. 45 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:01,680 I'm sorry, with Biden, it began there and then it became Latinos going Harris. 46 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:07,920 They kept the same Spanish vernacular when the emphasis really and Democratic Party politics 47 00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:13,320 is focused almost exclusively on Spanish speaking kind of the recently migrated sort of this 48 00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:16,240 cultural stereotype of who Latinos are. 49 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:20,200 The Trump campaign, however, kind of makes an adjustment, very unique one. 50 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:25,560 They add the word Americans after Latinos from their 2020 campaign, Latinos for Trump, 51 00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:29,720 and it becomes Latinos, Latino Americans for Trump. 52 00:03:29,720 --> 00:03:34,760 And the reason why is they're speaking largely to this fast, fast growing third and fourth 53 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:37,120 generation Latino voter. 54 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:39,280 It's the fastest growing segment of the Latino vote. 55 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:45,840 It also happens to be the most Republican leaning group, this under 30 recently registered 56 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:54,320 U.S. born, often non-college educated blue collar worker is moving more Republican compared 57 00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:58,800 to all other voter groups that meet the same basic demographic criteria. 58 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:02,560 They're moving Republican at a pretty fast rate. 59 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:06,280 And both campaigns, again, are speaking to these these kind of polar opposite groups 60 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:08,920 generationally in the Latino electorate. 61 00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:13,080 And that, I think, is the most fascinating development that I've seen in decades of doing 62 00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:17,520 this work and working with presidential campaigns is it's not just that they're speaking kind 63 00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:23,960 of with this broad umbrella of who Latinos are with sort of a racial and ethnic lens. 64 00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:29,440 While Democrats continue to do that, Republicans have made an adjustment to this newer, younger, 65 00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:32,520 more assimilated, fast growing segment of the Latino population. 66 00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:42,000 Well, you argued in your book that generally Latinos do not want to be viewed as an aggrieved 67 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:43,760 segment of society. 68 00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:48,640 They want to assimilate and be part of society. 69 00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:55,680 And could you could you speak to that and into what how you are envisioning this change 70 00:04:55,680 --> 00:05:03,040 of view, not from the Latinos, but from many of the politicians on both sides of the aisle 71 00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:08,400 and how they view the Latinos and the truth of what Latinos want? 72 00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:11,680 Well, there's a lot of a lot of questions packed in there. 73 00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:13,040 Yeah, let me say this. 74 00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:17,120 We are we are seeing in many ways a very typical or traditional assimilative tendencies with 75 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:19,240 Latino voters. 76 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:24,920 But the main the main one is that Latino voters are losing their racial and ethnic anchor 77 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:27,640 as is very typical by the third generation. 78 00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:31,200 They overwhelmingly identify as quote unquote typically American. 79 00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:35,480 They their Latino identity or their country of origin identity is beginning to take a 80 00:05:35,480 --> 00:05:36,480 back seat. 81 00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:40,640 They still they still would suggest that they're Latinos or Hispanics and they have an appreciation 82 00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:42,960 of sensitivity for their culture. 83 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:46,600 But they're they're overwhelmingly prioritized being an American. 84 00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:54,040 And this is this is something that again is is not unique in American history. 85 00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:57,040 But the size and scope of it is. 86 00:05:57,040 --> 00:06:02,720 And I think that while we are seeing Latinos sort of assimilate into the dominant mainstream 87 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:08,800 American culture, I also argue in the book, we're witnessing the dominant mainstream culture 88 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:14,620 assimilating into Latino identity as fast or faster than the reverse. 89 00:06:14,620 --> 00:06:19,800 So we're really seeing something that is not a typical melting pot, a similar pattern that 90 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:20,800 we've seen in the past. 91 00:06:20,800 --> 00:06:22,440 In fact, I think it's quite different. 92 00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:28,240 You know, Bad Bunny, for example, is the top artist, song artist in America. 93 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:30,240 All of his songs are in Spanish. 94 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:33,200 It's not just Latinos that are buying those albums. 95 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:35,480 Overwhelmingly, it's white English speakers. 96 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:40,720 We can go on and on with with food and culture and entertainment is modern American culture 97 00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:46,560 is changing rapidly and it's becoming more Latino as much as Latinos are becoming more 98 00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:48,960 modern American or typically American. 99 00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:51,360 So we're witnessing a real fusion. 100 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:53,880 We're not seeing the traditional typical assimilative pattern. 101 00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:59,960 And that's confounding both parties because both parties traditionally have viewed nonwhite 102 00:06:59,960 --> 00:07:05,760 voters as a 70 percent plus Democratic base vote. 103 00:07:05,760 --> 00:07:10,760 They speak to nonwhite voters, both parties overwhelmingly through a racial and ethnic 104 00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:13,020 lens. 105 00:07:13,020 --> 00:07:16,680 The Democrats more than the Republicans leave and lean into, I would argue, the more the 106 00:07:16,680 --> 00:07:22,320 grievance politics under racial identity for nonwhites, I would also argue Republicans 107 00:07:22,320 --> 00:07:24,760 lead into white grievance. 108 00:07:24,760 --> 00:07:27,000 So both parties lean into grievance. 109 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:32,000 But the Latinos increasingly as the moderate voters in both parties are kind of rejecting 110 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:34,200 that type of politics. 111 00:07:34,200 --> 00:07:39,560 And so this shift that we're seeing of Latinos to the right is really more emblematic of 112 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:41,460 a growing populist sentiment. 113 00:07:41,460 --> 00:07:43,780 They're leaving both parties. 114 00:07:43,780 --> 00:07:48,080 We have the weakest party anchor of any of the major ethnic groups in the country. 115 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:53,680 Of course, Latinos surpassed black Americans as the largest ethnic group in 2020 voting 116 00:07:53,680 --> 00:07:54,680 group. 117 00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:56,280 It's the largest now. 118 00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:59,040 And grievance politics doesn't work well with Latinos. 119 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:06,220 This is an upwardly mobile aspirational working class voting group. 120 00:08:06,220 --> 00:08:11,180 And the politics of racial identity on both sides aren't working. 121 00:08:11,180 --> 00:08:18,560 You wrote that in your book, the Latinos are to the right of most Democrats and to the 122 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:20,920 left of most Republicans. 123 00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:24,600 And they're the fastest growing segment of the electorate. 124 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:29,840 So the potential for Latinos to moderate both parties is very high. 125 00:08:29,840 --> 00:08:32,000 Do you see that happening? 126 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:33,280 Is it happening now? 127 00:08:33,280 --> 00:08:35,320 It's happening with voters for sure. 128 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:39,500 And a lot of Democrats will say, oh, you're moving to the right. 129 00:08:39,500 --> 00:08:43,240 So that makes you, why are you leading into this kind of white supremacy, nationalist 130 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:44,240 extremism? 131 00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:49,200 And Republicans, for their part, will say, why are you listening to the old get off the 132 00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:53,080 plantation rhetoric they used to use with African-Americans? 133 00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:55,800 Both of them are somewhat racially offensive. 134 00:08:55,800 --> 00:09:00,760 But the reason why Latinos are moderates is because we're overwhelmingly focused on economic 135 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:01,960 priorities. 136 00:09:01,960 --> 00:09:03,280 We're overwhelmingly focused. 137 00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:05,800 We're a working class community. 138 00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:10,280 And frankly, it's white Americans broadly that have sort of the luxury or the benefit 139 00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:13,360 of focusing on cultural issues. 140 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:17,760 Both of the Republican and Democratic Party leadership, despite Kamala Harris's background, 141 00:09:17,760 --> 00:09:22,280 the political consulting class is over 90% white on both sides. 142 00:09:22,280 --> 00:09:26,680 They focus primarily on the cultural issues that animate their voter base. 143 00:09:26,680 --> 00:09:29,640 So on the American right, it's immigration. 144 00:09:29,640 --> 00:09:33,680 It's gender-based bathrooms. 145 00:09:33,680 --> 00:09:39,880 You know, the rejection of wokeism, where woke goes to die, speaking really kind of 146 00:09:39,880 --> 00:09:40,880 to their own base. 147 00:09:40,880 --> 00:09:44,040 Nobody else really understands why they're so hopped up about it. 148 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:45,720 Like, what are Republicans talking about? 149 00:09:45,720 --> 00:09:47,680 But that's the way they speak to themselves. 150 00:09:47,680 --> 00:09:50,440 And it works because they're animated by cultural change. 151 00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:56,440 They don't feel comfortable with where America is heading culturally, racially, ethnically, 152 00:09:56,440 --> 00:10:03,240 or I would argue with what the changes are happening with the conservative social structure 153 00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:05,440 of the traditional family. 154 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:12,000 The Democrats, for their part, are basically—their conundrum is they don't recognize that they're 155 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:14,980 not the party of the working class anymore. 156 00:10:14,980 --> 00:10:21,240 Their own base is animated by reproductive rights, abortion rights, gun control, marijuana 157 00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:23,960 legalization, climate change. 158 00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:29,360 Neither of these parties are really speaking from a real comprehensive policy perspective 159 00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:32,000 about working class issues. 160 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:36,600 And so in default, when you have the fastest-growing segment of the working class as Latinos, they're 161 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:40,920 going to vote with the party that's more populist and with the party that best represents, from 162 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:45,040 their perspective, working class culture, which is increasingly Republican. 163 00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:54,520 But then you hear people complain that the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, 164 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:59,520 says, I want to deport a lot of people. 165 00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:07,280 And the question is to Latinos often, why would you support Mr. Trump if his main plank 166 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:14,720 is deportation of people who have come over the border illegally? 167 00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:16,200 How do you respond to that? 168 00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:22,960 Well, again, the question presupposes that Latinos all identify with the undocumented 169 00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:24,520 immigrant personally. 170 00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:31,400 And obviously, that's not true of virtually any voting Latinos. 171 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:35,840 Only about 20% of voting Latinos are immigrants themselves. 172 00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:40,840 By definition, undocumented immigrants are not voting, despite what you might hear in 173 00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:42,120 your right-wing media. 174 00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:46,440 That's just quantifiably false and not true. 175 00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:52,140 So by definition, there's no correlation there. 176 00:11:52,140 --> 00:11:56,520 And I think that's one of the things that the Democrats really don't get is a lot of 177 00:11:56,520 --> 00:11:58,040 Latino polling has been done this cycle. 178 00:11:58,040 --> 00:12:00,720 I've been obviously looking at it for 30 years. 179 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:07,120 The Latino voting citizen doesn't have that direct personal experience, by and large, 180 00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:09,080 with the undocumented experience. 181 00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:14,000 And so when they hear Democrats sort of defending that, they immediately from the get become 182 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:15,000 unrelatable. 183 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:20,840 And that's a significant problem for the Democratic Party because it's really doubled down on 184 00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:26,480 what I think can accurately be described as a very progressive open border essential policy. 185 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:30,760 We have no border security framework or policy specifics. 186 00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:34,120 The attacks of being called open border land, they stick. 187 00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:40,200 And Latinos themselves are increasingly shifting to a stronger border security policy. 188 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:41,200 They want to see border security. 189 00:12:41,200 --> 00:12:42,680 It doesn't mean it's racist. 190 00:12:42,680 --> 00:12:45,840 There's certainly a racist way to do it. 191 00:12:45,840 --> 00:12:49,680 And that I think that is embodied in Donald Trump and a lot of the Republican Party today. 192 00:12:49,680 --> 00:12:51,840 And I think that's why there's an opening for Kamala Harris. 193 00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:56,680 In fact, I think her very significant shift to the right on these issues towards a very 194 00:12:56,680 --> 00:13:02,280 conservative Republican position on immigration is one of the reasons why she closed the gap 195 00:13:02,280 --> 00:13:06,600 as much as she had moved away from where Biden's really bad numbers were. 196 00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:12,100 The reasons why she brought it down to about 2020 levels is because of the pivot on immigration. 197 00:13:12,100 --> 00:13:18,520 So the whole idea of immigration becomes this overwhelming issue for a group of voters that 198 00:13:18,520 --> 00:13:20,400 don't prioritize the issue. 199 00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:21,400 They never have. 200 00:13:21,400 --> 00:13:27,520 And as we become more third and generation voter group, we are prioritizing it even less, 201 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:32,920 except for when we want more border security and mitigate the immigration reform and pathway 202 00:13:32,920 --> 00:13:34,320 to citizenship and DACA protections. 203 00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:36,060 And that doesn't mean we don't want those. 204 00:13:36,060 --> 00:13:39,040 We do want those as well as a community, but they're not a priority. 205 00:13:39,040 --> 00:13:40,040 They never have been. 206 00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:50,280 I heard you give some very interesting figures about Los Angeles County voters who are foreign 207 00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:51,280 born. 208 00:13:51,280 --> 00:13:54,820 And I think that would enrich our discussion. 209 00:13:54,820 --> 00:13:57,560 Could you go over that again, please? 210 00:13:57,560 --> 00:14:01,840 Yeah, the premise of my book is that we're witnessing a generational transformation in 211 00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:02,840 Latino voters. 212 00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:06,680 And it's important to understand that those that are recently migrated that do become 213 00:14:06,680 --> 00:14:11,800 naturalized and sit and register to vote have an extremely different political outlook than 214 00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:17,400 their sons and daughters and a tectonic difference between their sons and granddaughters. 215 00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:21,120 And the fastest growing group in the country is this third generation. 216 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:26,520 There's even now a discernible fourth generation cohort that's big enough for us to study. 217 00:14:26,520 --> 00:14:30,040 That wasn't the case when I first started looking at Latino voters in the 90s. 218 00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:36,040 But Los Angeles County, which is by far the largest Latino county in all of the country 219 00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:46,800 and is really the primary first stopping point for most Mexican and Central American immigrants 220 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:53,280 has been reflective of that change so much so that in 2002, about 22 years ago, over 221 00:14:53,280 --> 00:15:00,120 half of the new Latino registrants in LA County, 54% were foreign born. 222 00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:05,860 Over half of new Latino registrants in 2002 in Los Angeles County were foreign born. 223 00:15:05,860 --> 00:15:11,160 Many years later, by 2022, that number had dropped to about 8%, like just completely 224 00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:12,960 fallen off a cliff. 225 00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:13,960 Fascinating numbers. 226 00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:14,960 They really are. 227 00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:19,280 It's fascinating numbers and it shows just how dramatic within one generation this vote 228 00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:20,280 is changing. 229 00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:23,000 It's just completely transforming. 230 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:30,360 And the Latino voter of what we have come to understand and characterize and stereotype 231 00:15:30,360 --> 00:15:34,960 over the last 30 years is going to be wholly different, completely and entirely different 232 00:15:34,960 --> 00:15:38,200 than the Latino vote of the next 30 years. 233 00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:41,840 So let's go back to this election right now. 234 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:49,840 I'm curious to know your feelings about the impact of the Madison Square Garden event 235 00:15:49,840 --> 00:15:58,080 where Latinos and particularly Puerto Ricans were abused by some of the speakers. 236 00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:02,920 Do you think that's going to have an impact on this current campaign? 237 00:16:02,920 --> 00:16:03,920 I do. 238 00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:04,920 I think it will have an impact. 239 00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:07,200 In fact, I think it really hurts Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. 240 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:08,960 I'll explain why in just a second. 241 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:13,400 But the main reason why a lot of people have asked, been talking with reporters over the 242 00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:16,680 past 48 hours about this, all saying, why? 243 00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:21,280 What's different about this offensive comment compared to the hundreds of other offensive 244 00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:22,840 comments that he's made? 245 00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:26,400 And the answer really kind of lies in the question, which is it wasn't Donald Trump 246 00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:27,400 that was saying it. 247 00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:32,240 This is the first time that we are witnessing kind of this parade of terribles around him 248 00:16:32,240 --> 00:16:38,640 using horribly disgusting, racist, vile, vulgar arguments and jokes, quote unquote, jokes, 249 00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:41,440 trying to hide the racism with humor. 250 00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:44,520 And America's sensibilities were shocked by it. 251 00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:48,880 To defend it at this point, you're not just defending Trump where we've kind of rolled 252 00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:51,400 our eyes at it and say, OK, the old man's crazy. 253 00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:56,240 He's just saying old man stuff like at Thanksgiving dinner, just ignore it and he'll move on. 254 00:16:56,240 --> 00:17:00,680 If Donald Trump had said these things, we would be moving on. 255 00:17:00,680 --> 00:17:04,080 He gets a pass now because we're just so immune to the fact that Donald Trump is just that 256 00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:05,440 guy. 257 00:17:05,440 --> 00:17:06,880 But it wasn't Donald Trump. 258 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:09,800 It was the people that he surrounds himself with. 259 00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:14,840 And that's what's fundamentally different is just as Americans and Latinos specifically 260 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:20,520 are beginning to tune into this election, they're hearing from the people around him 261 00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:27,080 comfortable with tossing around some of the vulgarity and vile language of not just offending 262 00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:31,800 Puerto Ricans with it being an island of garbage, but a black Americans carving watermelons 263 00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:32,800 for Halloween. 264 00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:35,440 Like enough, like enough. 265 00:17:35,440 --> 00:17:36,680 We're done with this. 266 00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:41,200 And I think the most immediate impacts happen in the one battleground state where Puerto 267 00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:43,320 Ricans are the largest ethnic plurality. 268 00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:47,780 And that is in Pennsylvania, a state that is kind of neck and neck at the moment. 269 00:17:47,780 --> 00:17:53,120 And I think this offends the sensibilities, obviously, of the Puerto Rican diaspora, where 270 00:17:53,120 --> 00:17:58,000 if he loses just a couple of three points of those voters to Kamala Harris, it has a 271 00:17:58,000 --> 00:17:59,600 tectonic impact. 272 00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:04,880 But moreover, Pennsylvania is the state that had the largest number of Republican defections 273 00:18:04,880 --> 00:18:09,480 to Biden away from Trump of all the battleground states in 2020. 274 00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:12,920 This is exactly the type of rhetoric of why they're leaving. 275 00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:17,740 College educated people don't have any desire to be in a party that looks like the Confederacy 276 00:18:17,740 --> 00:18:21,720 and defends the Confederacy that plays footsie with white supremacists. 277 00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:24,080 And it's really more than playing footsie. 278 00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:27,360 It's now just openly embracing and platforming these voices. 279 00:18:27,360 --> 00:18:31,040 And again, the reason why I think this hits different is because you can't just dismiss 280 00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:33,000 this as Donald Trump being Donald Trump. 281 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:36,720 We shouldn't be doing that as a country anyway, but you can't do it because it wasn't him. 282 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:38,680 It was the people that he chose to elevate. 283 00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:40,460 And it wasn't just one. 284 00:18:40,460 --> 00:18:42,520 It was many of them. 285 00:18:42,520 --> 00:18:47,640 And the anti-Semitism, the anti-black comment, the anti-immigrant comments, the anti-Puerto 286 00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:51,800 ican comments, all combined show just this menagerie of terribles. 287 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:54,960 That's why I think it is going to affect the outcome of the race. 288 00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:58,280 And what about Latino voters in heavy Latino states? 289 00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:00,880 They're also considered swing states. 290 00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:06,480 I'm thinking of Nevada and Arizona primarily, but you may have comments on some of the other 291 00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:07,480 swing states. 292 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:11,840 Well, all of them, as I mentioned in kind of an intro here, every one of them has a 293 00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:16,080 Latino population that will be bigger, in many cases, much bigger than the margin of 294 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:17,080 victory. 295 00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:23,760 Arizona, of course, which is the largest, also has a more multigenerational Latino experience. 296 00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:28,600 You've got immigrants, you've got their children, you've got their grandchildren, all registered 297 00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,040 and will be voting this year. 298 00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:37,080 That's very unique and different from a Nevada, for example, which is predominantly foreign-born 299 00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:40,480 or more foreign-born, not predominantly, but more foreign-born. 300 00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:46,120 Overwhelmingly blue collar union members, the culinary union is the famous Harry Reid 301 00:19:46,120 --> 00:19:48,120 machine in Clark County. 302 00:19:48,120 --> 00:19:52,880 Basically the workforce that makes the Las Vegas strip work is over half Latino and it 303 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:56,240 is a pro-labor constituency. 304 00:19:56,240 --> 00:20:02,480 But it is also going to really love Donald Trump's tax on tips argument and the affordability 305 00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:04,960 issues that he's been laying out. 306 00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:07,920 Arizona and Nevada, incidentally, Arizona, of course, is a border state. 307 00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:09,520 Nevada is less so. 308 00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:15,960 But the competition with the undocumented for labor and unskilled labor and just basic 309 00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:20,640 border security in Arizona are much more predominant issues with Latinos there than they are, for 310 00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:25,480 example, in Pennsylvania, where you've got Puerto Ricans who are US citizens by birth. 311 00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:31,480 Wisconsin has a larger Latino voting population than Black Americans now, radically changing. 312 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:39,320 North Carolina will have about 283,000 Latino voters, which is about one or 2% of the population. 313 00:20:39,320 --> 00:20:43,840 That state will come down to an election by less than 1%. 314 00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:44,840 Latinos aren't being polled. 315 00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:50,520 So you've got a real sleeper group in North Carolina where Latinos could be the determinative 316 00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:53,200 in North Carolina going one way or the other. 317 00:20:53,200 --> 00:20:54,200 Very interesting. 318 00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:57,560 Let's bring it back to our home state of California. 319 00:20:57,560 --> 00:20:58,560 Yeah. 320 00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:07,640 You, as I mentioned in the introduction, were the California Republican Party political 321 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:10,160 director. 322 00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:19,080 California clearly was affected by the campaign of Proposition 187 in 1994. 323 00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:26,880 I once talked to the campaign manager of the team that was trying to defeat 187 and said 324 00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:32,960 he thought it was going down to defeat until the demonstrations with many Mexican flags 325 00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:35,800 in downtown Los Angeles. 326 00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:36,800 And then it passed. 327 00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:43,760 But my question is this, in regard to the big discussion about immigration today, reflecting 328 00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:50,120 back to what happened here in California, obviously the GOP shrunk in California right 329 00:21:50,120 --> 00:21:51,120 after that. 330 00:21:51,120 --> 00:21:57,200 But given the migration issue that's now taken the center stage, is there redemption for 331 00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:05,520 the California Republican Party with the Latinos and specifically Governor Wilson, who was 332 00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:08,080 tied to that campaign? 333 00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:12,560 Or is it two different eras in different political environments? 334 00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:15,560 How do you put all that together? 335 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:16,560 What happened then? 336 00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:17,560 What's happening now? 337 00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:18,560 Yeah, that's a great question. 338 00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:23,000 Yeah, first, the comment about Proposition 187 going down to defeat because Mexicans 339 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:25,840 were waving flags, that's absurd. 340 00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:27,160 You don't move 20 points. 341 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:28,160 You never have. 342 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:29,880 That's not what happened. 343 00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:34,680 If that did or didn't happen, voters were going to overwhelmingly break the way that 344 00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:36,040 they were going to break. 345 00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:38,160 The polling always showed it in that position. 346 00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:40,920 That's why Pete Wilson leaned into the issue. 347 00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:44,840 He leaned into it because he was down 27 points against Kathleen Brown in February of that 348 00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:45,840 year. 349 00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:47,200 He wins by 17 points. 350 00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:49,400 It's not because it was iffy. 351 00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:53,240 It was overwhelmingly being supported by Californians. 352 00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:57,280 So that was just a consultant defending his position, probably. 353 00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,040 Yeah, and his soul, I think, probably. 354 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:03,120 A lot of people just trying to solve their soul. 355 00:23:03,120 --> 00:23:07,760 The question of redemption is a good one because it presupposes the redemption, I think, is 356 00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:09,960 the right word. 357 00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:15,280 Redemption, I think, in many ways is predicated on the idea that you either have learned your 358 00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:20,200 lesson or have sought forgiven or that you were right all along. 359 00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:28,640 I don't know that either of those actually fit the narrative correctly. 360 00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:35,520 The California Republican Party has very, very significant problems with Latino voters. 361 00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:37,000 Very significant. 362 00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:39,240 It's been 30 years. 363 00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:45,960 It's hard not to say that they were wrong, quantifiably wrong by not only doing this 364 00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:51,800 in 1994 but continuing it for another 20 years. 365 00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:57,560 What I do think is fascinating is by the time the Republican Party will get back into contention, 366 00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:03,040 if it ever does, it will be when all of those supporters and activists and consultants are 367 00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:04,320 dead. 368 00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:07,720 So I don't know that redemption is the right word. 369 00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:14,720 I think that changing times would probably be a better reflection of what that meant. 370 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,560 I think that the Republican Party, it wasn't just one issue. 371 00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:27,560 It was 20 years of leaning into anti-immigrant, pro-white supremacist thinking that I think 372 00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:32,320 leaves the Republican Party in California where it's at today deservedly so. 373 00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:37,200 There were voices at the time, of course, to say, don't go down this path. 374 00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:39,040 You were one of them. 375 00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:45,880 I know another one, friend of both of ours, I believe, Stu Spencer, who was Ronald Reagan's 376 00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:54,280 campaign manager, who tirelessly tried to talk the Republican Party into embracing the 377 00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:59,080 rising Latino vote and not successfully. 378 00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:04,520 And other people that I admire greatly, Jack Kemp among them warned and said, this is coming. 379 00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:11,400 And the thing about Stu Spencer and Jack Kemp, they are people that care deeply, obviously 380 00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,960 about the Republican Party as it was, but more importantly, they care about human beings 381 00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:16,640 and humanity. 382 00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,960 And they saw the Republican Party at one time as a vehicle for that. 383 00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,120 They saw, I think, the ugliness arising from the shadows. 384 00:25:24,120 --> 00:25:25,120 That wasn't just 187. 385 00:25:25,120 --> 00:25:30,680 When they said when they knew correctly was just the beginning of what was becoming sort 386 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,960 of opening Pandora's box. 387 00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,680 And like I said, there was 20 years of this stuff that went on. 388 00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:40,880 For every year, for two decades, there was another Republican legislator introducing 389 00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,640 more anti-immigrant legislation. 390 00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,760 And it's cost them. 391 00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,440 It's cost them dearly, as it probably should have. 392 00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:55,260 But like I said, if you believe that one political party is more virtuous than the other simply 393 00:25:55,260 --> 00:25:59,480 by the nature of its existence, you're probably part of the problem. 394 00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:03,640 And it's one of the things that I admire most about Jack Kemp and Stu Spencer, both mentors, 395 00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:08,240 both great heroes of mine, was that they stood up against popular opinion because they knew 396 00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,040 that what was going on was not right. 397 00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:16,440 And it's hard to do sometimes when your name, your reputation, your income, your business 398 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:18,640 is on the line. 399 00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:22,960 It's very, very rare to see people of courage stand up in these modern times, especially 400 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,520 against a political machine. 401 00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:26,520 And they both did it. 402 00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:28,000 And I'm very deeply proud of them for doing it. 403 00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:32,160 I expect you felt a little bit of that pressure over the last few years yourself. 404 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,520 Oh, my involvement's come at great cost. 405 00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:36,520 I don't regret it. 406 00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:42,560 I'm more proud of myself because we've all been at those moments in time as Americans 407 00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:48,120 in deciding what we would have done during the rise of authoritarianism in 1930s Germany. 408 00:26:48,120 --> 00:26:50,960 It's that question you're asked in fifth grade. 409 00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:52,240 And now we all know. 410 00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:53,240 We all know. 411 00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,040 And I know for certain what I would have done then. 412 00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:59,120 I know what I have done now is it cost me a big part of my business. 413 00:26:59,120 --> 00:27:02,700 It cost me a lot of quote unquote friends. 414 00:27:02,700 --> 00:27:07,600 But the difference between good and bad at this moment in this dark, dark chapter in 415 00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,800 American history is very clear. 416 00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:15,920 And I am very proud that my children and my children's children will know where I stood. 417 00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:17,920 That's a strong note to end on. 418 00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:19,800 But I would like to give you at least the opportunity. 419 00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:26,120 If you have any final comments or optimistic comments you'd like to add about the direction 420 00:27:26,120 --> 00:27:28,960 we're headed, I'd love to hear them. 421 00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,920 Well the book, The Latino Century, is ultimately a very optimistic book. 422 00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:37,080 And I think that was as we look and we hear discussions on both sides of the aisle about 423 00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:42,760 what is wrong with democracy and the failings of democracy and people are continually looking 424 00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:43,760 for different reforms. 425 00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:45,600 You know, is it ranked choice voting? 426 00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:47,560 Is it eliminating the electoral college? 427 00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,320 Is it, you know, primary reform? 428 00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,280 Is it campaign, dark money campaign reform? 429 00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:55,040 None of these reforms work. 430 00:27:55,040 --> 00:28:01,360 None of the Constitution doesn't work unless it is supported by people that still believe 431 00:28:01,360 --> 00:28:02,360 in it. 432 00:28:02,360 --> 00:28:08,320 And so much of what is happening at this moment is a failure of the American people to continue 433 00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:13,440 the extension of confidence and trust in our Constitution, in our American norms, and the 434 00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,160 idea of America itself. 435 00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:21,660 People over the age of 60 have the most negative perceptions of America and her future of any 436 00:28:21,660 --> 00:28:25,960 modern generation ever polled with modern polling techniques. 437 00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:30,960 That's a damning statement from a generation that has probably been the beneficiary of 438 00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:34,640 the greatest wealth, privilege, and largesse that this country has ever produced. 439 00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:40,920 Meanwhile, this group under 30, much poorer, much more recently migrated, much more Latino, 440 00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:46,160 with far less reasons to believe in America, score very, very high in the idea of the promise 441 00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,480 of America and the future and what tomorrow brings. 442 00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:51,200 And that's our great hope. 443 00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:54,520 Because no matter what reforms, no matter what public policies we implement, we can 444 00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:55,680 always change those. 445 00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:57,600 You can fix bad policy. 446 00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:02,560 What you can't fix is a belief in who you are as a people. 447 00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,720 At a certain point, it's just going to have to be demographic change. 448 00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:14,560 And the reason why I am so hopeful is every day we become more pure to our original commitments, 449 00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:21,440 to the idea that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. 450 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:25,920 The wide swath of Americans who believe that we can go back to a time where we can reject 451 00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:31,000 that and stop us from being anything other than a white Christian nation. 452 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:32,600 We are becoming less so. 453 00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:37,440 And I think that's truer to the American creed, the American idea is practicing our faith 454 00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:42,440 the way that we see it, coming from the different beautiful ethnic cultures that we are from 455 00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:46,080 and still be great guardians of the American idea, the American experiment. 456 00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:48,720 And we're witnessing that happening every day. 457 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,960 Thank you for that summary, Mike. 458 00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:52,960 And thank you for joining us. 459 00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:54,920 Surfing the political waves here at Pepperdine. 460 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,000 Mike Madrid, author of the Latino Century. 461 00:29:58,000 --> 00:29:59,000 Thanks again. 462 00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,000 Joel, thanks for your friendship and for having me on. 463 00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:02,000 Appreciate you. 464 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:03,800 Thank you. 465 00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:08,440 Thanks for joining us for this conversation on Surfing Political Waves. 466 00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:13,800 For more engaging dialogue on politics and policy, visit Pepperdine School of Public 467 00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,960 Policy on YouTube at Pepperdine SPP. 468 00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:40,920 For upcoming community events, go to publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu slash events.